At its inception radio telephony was designed, and used for, voice communications. As the consumer electronics industry continued to mature, and the capabilities of processors increased, more devices became available for use that allowed the wireless transfer of data between devices. Also more applications became available that operated based on such transferred data. Of particular note are the Internet and local area networks (LANs). These two innovations allowed multiple users and multiple devices to communicate and exchange data between different devices and device types. With the advent of these devices and capabilities, users (both business and residential) found an increasing need to transmit data, as well as voice, from mobile locations.
The infrastructure and networks which support this voice and data transfer have likewise evolved. Limited data applications, such as text messaging, were introduced into the so-called “2G” systems, such as the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications. Packet data over radio communication systems were implemented in GSM with the addition of the General Packet Radio Services (GPRS). 3G systems and, then, even higher bandwidth radio communications introduced by Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) standards made applications like surfing the web more easily accessible to millions of users (and with more tolerable delay). Another radio access technology (RAT), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) which is an improvement to the 2G systems, can also be found in use.
Even as new network designs are rolled out by network manufacturers, future systems which provide greater data throughputs to end user devices are under discussion and development. For example, the so-called 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) standardization project is intended to provide a technical basis for radiocommunications in the decades to come. This evolution of network designs has resulted in various network operators deploying their networks in various frequency bands with different RATs in various geographical areas. As a result of this, a user equipment (UE) which supports several frequency bands and/or different RATs will need to be able to search for cells and service in a correct frequency band and/or RAT depending upon, for example, the geographical area in which the UE is currently located, the quality desired for a particular service and operator preferences.
One solution for supporting a multi-band and/or multi-RAT UE in various geographical areas involves implementing network search algorithms in the UE. However, the actual design process of these algorithms is time consuming. The designers of these algorithms have an ongoing need to have up to date information about the various deployed networks by the various network operators. Another issue exists for UEs that already are in the market place. Due to the static nature of the algorithms currently used, the network search algorithms already in these legacy UEs may become inefficient when the various network operators re-plan or modify their networks. Additionally, UEs currently can take a long time when executing the access searches which then leads to a considerable delay until a network is found as experienced by the user.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide methods and systems for multi-band, multi-RAT UEs which avoid or reduce the above described drawbacks.